Books 2009

As I promised last year, I kept careful records of every book I read in 2009. In addition to recording the titles and authors, I’ve noted the length of each book and when I read it. Below are some statistics I’ve calculated from this data.

Reading Statistics

  • Total pages read: 18031
  • Avg. pages per month: 1502.58
  • Avg. pages per week: 346.75
  • Avg. pages per day: 49.40
  • Longest book: A Pattern Language, 1166 pages
  • Shortest book: Brunelleschi’s Dome, 165 pages
  • Longest time to read a book: A Pattern Language, 48 days
  • Shortest time to read a book: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, 1 days

In addition to the average number of pages, I also computed the distribution of the number of pages read each month. For this I assume that I read at a constant (i.e. the same number of pages per day). This is clearly not true, but it still shows the basic trends.

Finally, I’ve plotted a histogram of the lengths of the books I read. As one would expect, the largest buckets are between 200 and 400 pages.

Here is the complete list of books I read in 2009. The rows highlighted in yellow are books I reread this year, and those highlighted in green are books I listened to in audiobook form. In the later case I used Amazon for the number of pages. Of course, the number of pages is approximate, and I make no claims to consistency about things like handling front and end matter or different editions.

# Title Author Pages Start Date End Date
1 The Book of Air and Shadows Michael Gruber 496 01/04 01/07
2* Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson 918 01/08 02/15
3 Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies June Casagrande 199 01/13 01/23
4 Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner 336 02/13 02/15
5 Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature Douglas Farr 300 02/17 03/07
6* The Diamond Age Neal Stephenson 455 03/07 03/22
7 Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life Neil Strauss 418 03/29 04/03
8 The Big U Neal Stephenson 308 04/09 04/25
9* Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions Dan Ariely 304 04/18 04/20
10* A Pattern Language Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King, Shlomo Angel 1166 04/27 06/13
11 Zodiac Neal Stephenson 316 05/12 05/19
12 Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart Ian Ayres 320 05/14 05/19
13* Gig: Americans Talk about their Jobs John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, Sabin Streeter, eds. 670 05/19 05/24
14 Excession Iain M. Banks 451 05/24 06/04
15 Food Matters Mark Bittman 298 06/05 06/06
16 Home Witold Rybczynski 232 06/07 06/14
17 Adventures in Architecture Dan Cruickshank 283 06/14 06/25
18 The City in Mind James Howard Kunstler 252 06/15 06/25
19* Cyteen C.J. Cherryh 696 06/27 07/10
20 The Great Good Place Ray Oldenburg 368 07/11 07/18
21 In Praise of Slowness Carl Honore 336 07/19 07/21
22* The Bldg Blog Book Geoff Manaugh 272 07/27 08/01
23 Three Novels of Ancient Egypt Naguib Mahfouz 648 08/02 08/10
24 What I Talk About When I Talk About Running Haruki Murakami 192 08/15 08/15
25 The Angel’s Game Carlos Ruiz Zafón 544 08/16 08/20
26 Against a Dark Background Iain M. Banks 613 08/22 09/01
27 American Houses Gerald L. Foster 416 09/04 09/13
28 Create Your Own Economy Tyler Cowen 272 09/11 09/13
29* The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson 590 09/16 09/26
30 The Endless City Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, eds. 481 09/26 11/08
31 Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer Novella Carpenter 288 09/28 10/09
32 The Best American Travel Writing 2009 Simon Winchester, ed. 384 10/03 10/18
33 The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-to-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich Timothy Ferriss 320 10/09 10/12
34* The Geography of Bliss Eric Weiner 335 10/20 10/24
35* Regenesis C.J. Cherryh 585 11/08 11/16
36* Getting Stoned with Savages J. Maarten Troost 256 11/09 11/13
37 The Sex Lives of Cannibals J. Maarten Troost 288 11/13 11/16
38 Brunelleschi’s Dome Ross King 165 11/17 11/26
39* Green Metropolis David Owen 368 11/23 12/07
40 The Crystal World J.G. Ballard 210 12/01 12/12
41 The Girl who Played with Fire Stieg Larsson 503 12/14 12/18
42 The Magicians Lev Grossman 402 12/19 12/21
43 The Lost Symbol Dan Brown 528 12/22 12/29
44 Intown Living: A different American Dream Ann Breen, Dick Rigby 249 12/21 12/26

Update: I’ve added stars to those books that I particularly like.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.